Silitoe came from a working class background. He left school at 14 and worked in a bicycle factory in his native Nottingham before serving in the RAF. He was posted to Malaya during The Emergency as a radio operator and said about it:

I didn’t want to help in this war. If I had had an opportunity to help the guerrillas I would have done so.

He was invalided out of the service with TB and later drew on his experiences for a novel, The Open Door.